


coffee's on

by interim



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, it's garbage!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 02:06:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7462500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interim/pseuds/interim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And I'm trying, but this darkness won't let go of me."</p><p>Eliza contemplates her place in this mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	coffee's on

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [national anthem](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6603271) by [iaintinapatientphase](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaintinapatientphase/pseuds/iaintinapatientphase). 



> I SHALL DIE. this is just really sad and really short and terrible. you should prob read national anthem by lovely emily both to understand this fic and because it's SO FUCKING GOOD. in terms of timeline, it's not critical  
> yeah. sad eliza. weird eliza. bad writing. the usual from me!

Eliza is usually not one to indulge in fantasy. She knows in her mind that it would only build more longing for the life she’s not allowed to have anymore. Still, it’s only  _ usually _ . Some mornings are unusual: when it’s pitch black outside and Alexander has already left the bed, his indentation in the mattress quickly losing its warmth and scent. Eliza doesn’t need to be up for another hour, but she knows she won’t fall back to sleep, so she curls herself up in the extra blanket square footage and lets herself be pulled into her fantasy. 

Her fantasy is more of a game plan that will never be used. How to get away with running away. She started building her ideas one drunk night when she was empty and angry, still reeling from resigning and having just finished reading  _ Gone Girl _ . The most important thing is money. She would need cash, of course, with all of her credit cards tied to either her father or Alexander. (On bad days, she withdraws a few hundred dollars from the company card and hides it in a shoebox in the back corners of her car’s trunk, presumably never to be touched). Enough to get her to Mississippi. Theodosia told her once, when she still taught and spent her weekends with the union, a then-tragic story about a country in Mississippi so understaffed they hired teachers without doing background checks. At the time, Eliza was horrified. In her fantasy plan, she hopes that they’re still that desperate. She has money, she could have a job, she would only need to ditch her car, and she would be  _ free _ . She’s sure that as soon as someone found out she left, the state police and news cycle would be hunting her down. Maybe one of the construction workers down the street would trade their Chevy for her BMW, and she could go undetected. She hates that BMW, anyway. Alex bought it for her as her Christmas gift after he got his first Christmas bonus from Henry Laurens, when he hadn’t done any work at the firm for six months. She hates to think what work he did earned that car, and where that money really came from. 

Her alarm is the first thing that grounds her, yanks her down from her dangerous fantasy. She sighs, rolling over and turning it off. Any minute, the kids will be up or Alexander will come in or the baby will start crying, so she should get out of bed anyway, but all she wants is to sink down in her covers and stay in her head for awhile. Imagine if she actually followed through on her plan, Mississippi with her box of cash and her traded pickup truck. Humidity makes her hair grow, she could have braids down to her waist again and teach again and be  _ her  _ again. 

But her prophecy about interruptions comes true, seemingly all at once. Angie comes barging in, half her hair in a sloppy braid, the other half still sticking up. She jumps on top of Eliza, shaking her. 

“Mom, look what Dad did to my hair,” she whines, as truly devastated as a seven year old can be. 

Eliza sits up, rubbing her eyes like she hasn’t been awake for an hour. She smiles, trying not to outright laugh at her daughter’s mess of hair. She runs her hand through the uninhibited curls. “Good thing you didn’t let him get the other side.”

“No, he stopped ‘cause someone was calling his phone a bunch of times and Jamie was crying.”

Eliza sighs, then lifts Angie off of her. “Let me get dressed, then I’ll fix your hair and make some breakfast.”

Angie nods, sitting on the bed and starting to take out the braid as Eliza goes to her closet. She knows Angie’s impatient, so she just grabs a sundress off a hanger and slips it on. It’s easier than trying to wiggle into some leggings or jeans, even if her legs aren’t shaved for this. The other moms at the school will judge her no matter what, stubble or no stubble. She ties her hair up in a bun and takes one quick look at herself in the mirror. She looks tired, no makeup, but she decides it’s good enough. She comes back out, and she and Angie head to the kitchen. 

The rest of the family is up and running without her, it seems. Alexander is juggling Jamie in one arm and furiously texting with the other. Philip is halfway through a bowl of cereal, and Alex Jr. is running his toy car across the bar. Angie climbs up onto her chair next to Philip. Eliza goes to pour herself some coffee, and that’s when Alexander finally notices her. 

“You’re up,” he says, surprised.

“I’m not that behind,” she says, looking at the clock on the microwave. It’s been maybe ten minutes since she usually gets up. “You could’ve woken me up.”

“You seemed tired last night, I figured you needed more time.”

She wants to laugh, but he wouldn’t understand why. She has a whole day of empty time ahead of her. Instead she just puts a bagel in the toaster. 

“At the very least, you should’ve woken me to do Angie’s hair,” she responds finally, trying to lighten the mood. 

Alex smiles, kissing her cheek. “You’re right. My better angel is better at everything, including braiding.” 

Eliza laughs, genuinely, then takes her coffee over to the bar, setting it down as she runs her fingers through Angie’s hair. “Okay, baby, one braid or two?”

Mornings like this are the lightest part of Eliza’s day, even when thoughts of her fantasy are still hanging in the corners of her mind. Everyone is calm, no stresses of the day have beaten them down into sour, tired, hungry moods yet. The children are compliant and agreeable, if only from being half asleep still. Philip, Angie, and Alex, Jr. get dressed while Jamie rests his head sleepily on Eliza’s shoulder without making a fuss. Alexander kisses her on the way out the door. She drives the older three to school and Jamie to daycare. Fills up on overpriced coffee.

And then the dread sets in. Her day is unscheduled until she needs to pick up the children again at three. It’s been months since she’s been a stay-at-home mom, but she still feels lost in this part of the day. She’s tried classes and exercise to fill the day, but it always feels like she’s just pretending. Like she’s on vacation. No, this is her life. 

She remembers one of her students, when she still taught, came to her asking, with all their second grader sincerity, “if a tree falls in a forest, but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Eliza had smiled, tried to explain, without being patronizing, that sound is made of vibrations that don’t have to be heard to exist. Now, she looks at her watch, barely inching closer to three o’clock, and thinks, “if I’m not doing anything meaningful, and no one is thinking of me, do I still exist?” She knows she doesn’t exist for herself anymore, so what is she from nine to three when there is no one around to need her, want her, think of her, validate her presence?

She doesn’t want to think of an answer. 

This void in her day. Alexander is working, the children are at school, Angelica and Peggy are busy fulfilling their Schuyler Family Duties. There is not a chance that she crosses any of their thoughts. It’s not malicious, she knows, but it still plagues her mind. She used to be in love with the way Alexander’s face lit up when he walked in the door and saw her at the end of the day, but she now she only wonders,  _ Did you just remember me?  _

_ If you left _ , the dark part of her mind offers,  _ you’d be all they thought about _ . 

Eliza stops herself. She’s thinking crazy. It’s not why she wants to leave, anyway. She just wants to live for herself again. Becoming a teacher was her way to escape the obligations of her father’s way of life, her best act of rebellion. But then Alexander was sucked into all of this and she had to leave her job and now she has nothing that is her own. Not even her first son, named after her father at his request when he still thought his last name would be Schuyler-Hamilton. 

That’s the most difficult thing that she has to reconcile when she thinks, truly, about leaving, about chasing after her fantasy plan. She can’t leave her children. It hurts to even consider. If she left, she doesn’t know when she would come back for them, if Alexander would even let her see them again. She couldn’t live with that. 

Thinking about the kids, it solidifies her. Chases away the dark thoughts about running away. She’s fine, she only has - what time is it? - five hours until school lets out and she stops being alone with her running mind. 

She tries to fill the time with the usual daily activities. She takes a shower, taking extra care when shaving her legs so she can put that sundress back on with confidence, blow dries her hair and puts on makeup for herself only. It all lasts a little bit longer than it should; Eliza’s dragging out the simplest tasks to try to eat up more seconds in the void. When she’s finally done getting ready, the kitchen is sitting, waiting to be cleaned, but she decides to take a long lunch by herself. Maybe she’ll have nice conversation with some waitress, use the company card for some good by leaving an exorbitant tip. 

She takes the elevator down, waves to the doorman on her way out the door. A valet brings her car around, the sky is hinting at rain and she doesn’t want to get caught in the storm. Eliza is about to step in when someone whistles long and low in her direction. She whips her head around, fully prepared to bring back her monologue from college after she took her gender studies class. Then she sees that the pair of eyes aren’t on her, but the car. Some older man, probably a tourist looking for his hotel. 

“That’s a beautiful car, ma’am,” he says, a hint of an accent. 

She smiles politely, but takes her second look at him more carefully. His hand is resting gently on the handle of his own car: a rusting pickup truck with a proud - albeit insensitive - Mississippi flag splayed out on the dash. Eliza’s heart lodges in her throat. After all the talking herself out of this she did earlier in the morning, she feels like she’s being pushed back towards it. 

It’s the fight or flight response, playing out in a matter of seconds in her head. Family or freedom. The void or a new classroom. Emptiness or the unknown. She tries to focus on the good. Family. Alexander, Philip, Angie, AJ, Jamie. Her sisters. Her mother. You’re thinking crazy, Eliza, it’s not a sign. It’s not fate. It’s coincidence. She’s making too much of this. 

“Thank you,” she says, finally. “Do you want it?”

The man sputters, and the world around her stops. “What.. are you serious?”

“Yeah.”  _ Is she? _

He’s talking a million miles a minute, thanking her, expressing his confusion, thanking her again. He offers her his own car in exchange. 

“Okay. I just need to get something from my trunk.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me interimsup.tumblr.com because i need attention.


End file.
